Information Technology Reference
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studies about text and picture which are just simple visual stimuli are different
from Web pages which have a variety of influencing factors.
There are also many studies about the effect of Internet ads on the user's visual
browsing behavior, such as ads content [9], present form [10] and location [11]
which had the effect on banner ads. Stenfors et al. through exploring internet ads
found that the Internet ads had no significant effect for users' visual search on
Web pages [12,13]. Balkenius and Moren found that users wouldn't pay attention
to the useless Internet ads when they were browsing on Web pages [14]. These
studies indicate that the most users will neglect the existence of Internet ads dur-
ing visual browsing information on Web pages. However, a study demonstrated
that animation can disperse users' attention to the content of Web pages [15].
Based on our knowledge, it has not been reported about the study on the effect
of users' visual search for the usual condition that the Web page with a floating
ad.
An eye tracker is a mental measure precision instrument which can capture
the changes of eye movement and record the data, such as pupil size and scan
path during people reading, looking at a picture or viewing scenery [16].
In this study, participants' eye movement data were recorded by Tobii T120
eye tracker. By analyzing the visual search time and pupil diameter, we inves-
tigated the two basic information forms and floating ads for the effect of the
visual search behavior on Web pages.
2
Experimental Design and Method
2.1
Experimental Web Pages
In the study, we designed 10 Web pages matching 10 search targets, which were
involving different topics such as the mobile, car and diet. The searched target of
each Web page was either text or picture, text was the Chinese phrase consisted
of 3
6 Chinese words, and the picture was a well-known logo picture which
was almost the same as text in visual effects. We arranged the searched targets
on different locations to eliminate the effects of information layout for the visual
search time, as well as used the single page type with no scrollbar to eliminate
the effects of using scrollbar for visual search time.
The experiment included visual search on the Web page without floating ads
and with floating ads. The Web page with floating ads was just adding a floating
ad on the Web page without floating ads. The floating ad was displayed in
synchronism with the Web page, which appeared at random position and floated
as the same speed as the real situation on the Web page. Fig. 1 shows the possible
pathways of the floating ad on a Web page.
∼
2.2
Participants and Apparatus
The participants were 100 undergraduates or postgraduates from various majors
with the average age of 23.0 years old (
= 1.8), in which 51 were female.
All participants were right-handed, skilled users of the Internet, had normal
SD
